


Just Enough Time

by osointricate



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Gen, M/M, Mania, Past Drug Use, Post 4.12, Suicidal Thoughts, Unbeta'd, rated mature for these reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 16:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osointricate/pseuds/osointricate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian thought he knew what was coming, but he had no idea.</p>
<p>This is Ian's point of view on his bipolar disorder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Enough Time

**Author's Note:**

> There are a ton of fics that have Mickey dealing with Ian's bipolar disorder. There are a ton of the fallout from other people's point of view, but none to very little from Ian's. Sometimes it needs to be about the person that's sick, not the people that are healthy. I realize that writing from Ian's point of view on the subject can be tricky and daunting if you've never experienced it first hand. So, as someone with bipolar disorder, I decided to try. A lot of what Ian thinks and feels and doesn't feel in this is personal experience.
> 
> But please, if you can get triggered by conversations about depression and mania and suicidal thoughts... be careful. Take care of yourself. You deserve it.

~~~

Ian knew it was coming.

He knew it was coming the moment the helicopter caught on fire. He knew the moment he was told he was being escorted “for questioning and punishment” the next morning. He packed his shit and ran and the whole time it felt like all of the weight of the rest of his life that had been sitting on his shoulders was gone.

He was free of it all.

It was addicting.

He knew why he did it. At the time, trying to see if he could fly a helicopter would be like one of Carl’s video games. But he knew what would happen. Life is not a video game. There is no do-over or save screen you can go back to. He started the rotor blades with absolute certainty that it would ruin the rest of his life. He pressed all the buttons and switches with gusto.

He knew why he did it.

When he was seven, and they were still living in the van, back when Monica went into the hospital and Ian was old enough to understand what that meant, he felt like he wasn’t a kid anymore. He heard the word “bipolar” for the first time and figured it was supposed to mean something. So, he spent a week of after school afternoons in the library (usually with a set of grumpy toddlers that people would give him looks for) looking up what it meant.

He tried to ask Frank, but his father would shrug him off and pull another beer out of the fridge. (Frank was gone the morning after he asked and didn’t turn back up for a year. Ian always blamed himself for that one.) He’d ask Lip and he’d get a shove and a “I don’t know, but it’s something serious.” He’d ask Fiona and she’d ruffle his hair and pat his cheek and kiss his forehead and tell him “don’t worry about it, she’s getting help!”

He found websites and websites full of information but it was all full of grown up words and doctor type vocabulary and nothing that would explain why his mom wouldn’t get out of bed. But a week later Monica was back and she smiled sometimes. She just got sick. Everyone gets sick. Ian shrugged it off and smiled happily when his mother handed him a McDonald’s breakfast.

Then, as quick as she was better, she was gone and they didn’t see her again for three years.

When he was ten and living in a house – a real house – it happened again. He was older and he knew enough that it was a sickness that kept coming back. She’d be fine and then she wouldn’t be and she’d be up and happy and making cookies with Ian and buying Lip new books for school with money that seemed to come out of nowhere and Fiona was up for something for track and Monica got the whole family involved and she’d throw parties and she’d dance with Ian in the living room at three AM and and and and and

And then she wouldn’t get out of bed. Ian couldn’t figure out why. Yesterday she was scrubbing the floor and bought paint for the kitchen walls and the next day she was lying in bed, not moving, quiet, and unresponsive.

Ian remembered Lip sitting over a book in the kitchen with “bipolar” on the cover. Frank being gentle with her, taking care of her, talking quietly and softly – something Frank just didn’t do. Fiona skipping school to work concession stand jobs she was too young to work just so they could have food.

Then she was back and she was fine and everything was great again.

Two weeks after that she had left them again and Ian couldn’t understand why.

The next time it happened she was pregnant with Liam and it was all Fiona could do to keep the house afloat and Monica eating and Debbie and Carl distracted.  
Ian dug out the book that Lip had been studying out of the basement and he began to understand. At least, he thought he understood. She’d be up, happy and busy for days or weeks or months, and then depressed and uncaring, as fast as a switch, and then back again just as quickly. It was in her brain and it wasn’t her fault or something she did. It was out of her control and there wasn’t much you could do except wait it out.

He had no idea, though. She knew this was happening to her. She was aware of it. She knew enough about herself she should see it and do something about it. Ian thought she had dealt with it long enough that she could predict it and stop it. No way did he get why she did the things she did, or how she felt when she’d lie in bed for days. How she could be so busy with projects and plans and ideas. He thought he knew, but he didn’t.

Then he started that helicopter.

He knew exactly what it was.

He couldn’t stop it.

And he knew.

Out of all six of the Gallagher children, he was the most like their mother. Everyone said it. He had her eyes, her smile, her laugh, her enthusiasm and love. He had her bipolar disorder.

Mickey got engaged and Ian couldn’t move. He cried on and off for days. Then Mickey got married and it was like a switch. The first pull of a trigger. He couldn’t cry anymore – not even if he wanted to, and ran away, threw away his carefully chosen career as a military officer and left.

Then he started that helicopter and all he saw was Monica bleeding out on the kitchen floor and all he felt was Fiona’s shaking grip on his shoulders and all he knew from that point on was it was coming.

He found Monica. Cried in her arms while she petted his hair and called him “her baby” and it was so nice to be with someone that understood. She taught him how to delay the inevitable, but it was always going to be inevitable.

“Let’s dance, baby.” She would say. “Let the music take it all away.”

So they danced. Dancing led to parties. Parties led to drugs. Drugs led to stronger drugs, the kind with mirrors and rolled up twenties and lighters under spoons. Drugs led to money problems. Money problems led to unsavory men sliding their hands down his pants. The whole time taking Ian’s mind off what was coming, what he didn’t want to admit was coming. It was all a good time, it was all a blur of happiness and drunkenness and highs like you wouldn’t believe.

Oh man, the highs.

Sometimes it didn’t take drugs.

Being manic is the best high there is. All the mellow tingles and happy giggles that being high entices you with, except you’re sober and you’re lucid and you can remember it the next day.

He got a tattoo. Something he promised himself he would never do. It seemed like an incredible idea at the time. An eagle with guns and all patriotic and shit. A permanent tribute on his body to a life he would no longer have. He found out that Monica had six perfect hearts tattooed down her thigh, right next to old tiny slivers of scars. “One for each of my babies,” she said. A life she would no longer have. It was perfect and it was painful but he laughed his way through it and Monica held his hand and she was laughing and it was a great night, really it was.

But great nights led to drinking and drugs all over again. Monica whispering suggestions about men and letting them take him back to their places just so he’d have a warm place to sleep. Questionable partners. Fun ones, old ones, ones that gave him money and drugs for his time.

It was almost blissful. Drugs did that for you. Took away the caring mechanism. Sometimes you didn’t even need drugs to turn off the caring mechanism. The one that thought too much, that whispered in the back of his mind that it was coming. Not caring led to passing out in the snow. The biting empty cold of the snow covered sidewalk led to waking up in Mickey’s house.

Then his high was all about Mickey. Mickey’s mouth. His tongue. His hair. His nose. His dick. His ass. His smile. His smirk. His neck, oh god his neck. That was just his body.

His attention was addictive. His presence was soothing in a way no drug could ever do for him. The happy little moan he would make when Ian finally pushed into him. The way he’d lean back into Ian’s chest. The way he’d kiss him goodbye. The way he’d kiss him in public, dirty and intense. The way his kisses were soft and powerful each and every time. The way he’d quietly run the tips of his fingers down Ian’s cheek. The way he’d pour him coffee in the mornings. The way he just dropped everything to be with Ian, to live with Ian, to play house with Ian. It was such a switch from how distant he was before that Ian drank it up like liquor.

Maybe the inevitable was a long way off, as long as he had Mickey.

But he knew it was coming.

He knew it the moment he held a knife to Kenyatta’s neck. The moment he pushed himself back out into the cold, leaning on the fence, willing himself to throw up and not to cry and not to panic because it was coming. It was coming fast and hard and there was nothing Ian could do to stop it.

He was a time bomb.

His family could deal with the damage, they had for years. They knew what it was and how to just let it pass and maybe get him help. They were strong and had each other. They would survive the aftermath.

This new, almost loving Mickey would get caught in the blast. Ian couldn’t have that. Mickey had to keep his distance. He had to get Mickey as far away from him as he could. So he did the one thing he knew Mickey wouldn’t do. An ultimatum. Coming out or breaking up.

Mickey shocked him, ruined his plans, and came out. Publically, loudly, for everyone to hear, and it was all for Ian.

Ian had never been so in love.

But it was still coming.

He had read the websites and books, he had heard stories, and he had seen firsthand what happens with Monica. But he didn’t know. He didn’t understand. Everyone called it a switch, and a switch was good when you didn’t understand. One day you’re fine and the next you’re not. A switch.

It wasn’t a switch. It was like a car engine just dying with no hope of a restart. It was being in a plane falling out of the sky. It was like the gas and electric bills hadn’t been paid and everything was cold and dark and still and bleak and cold.

He was tired and his eyes burned.

He was empty. Everything was just too much work. Rolling over and pulling the covers up to his chin was a workout. Telling people to leave him alone was a marathon. Looking anyone in the eye was climbing Everest. Looking at Mickey was going to the moon.  
What was worse was his mind kept focusing on Mickey’s top drawer. Dozens of guns. Dozens of bullets. He only needed one of each. It would be so easy, so simple.

But he didn’t want to die.

He just didn’t want to exist.

The distinction was very clear to him.

Dying meant leaving people to deal with his mess. Not existing meant no one would be hurt in the process.

“Ian?” Debbie asked. “It’s Debbie.”

And he was Monica and Monica was a source of grief and pain and suffering for all these people that he loved. He was Monica and he didn’t want to exist. He didn’t want to exist because it would be better for all the people that he loved.

There was red everywhere, blood pouring out of his mother’s arms, and the sounds of Fiona crying as she cleaned it up and the stains that still shone on the floor, the soft hint of red that still showed up whenever they moped kept him in bed away from the drawer.

He didn’t want to cause a mess. The distinction was clear.

The drawer was always there. Itching at his brain, settling in softly, and making its home. Somewhere between “breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out,” and “keep your eyes closed, the light is too much to deal with.”

In a strange, sick way, those guns were a comfort.

That realization only made him cry harder. He was so messed up and so broken and the soft kisses Mickey would leave on his shoulder and his arms around his waist holding him close in the middle of the night were reminders he wasn’t just hurting his brothers and his sisters but the man he loved and he just didn’t want to exist anymore. It would be easier if he had never existed and how horrible was this world if he was born just to make everyone else suffer.

“Just leave me alone!”

“No,” Mickey whispered one night, after Fiona came and left twice and Lip showed up and tried to cheer him up, and Debbie dropped off something that smelled like pasta, and Mandy laid down next to him and talked about her work without demanding Ian talk back to her. He never would and she would huff. Ian curled in closer to himself with every groan or huff or “what’s wrong with him” or “get out of bed already” or “it’s going to be okay.”

“I’m no good for you,” he mumbled.

“Nah,” Mickey said, kissing the back of his neck. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. How sad it was that this wonderful boy holding him had such a horrible life that a broken, lost cause was the best thing to happen to him. He should leave, find that abandoned house again. Put himself out of the way.

“I can’t move.” He says instead.

“That’s okay,” Mickey says. “You just stay here until you’re better.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Don’t what? Stay here? You’re staying here,” his grip tightens. Ian tries to push him off, but it’s just too much, Mickey’s too strong.

“Don’t get better?”

“You will.”

“Monica didn’t.”

Mickey is quiet for a moment before he finally says, “You’re not Monica.”

He knew this was coming, but he didn’t know. How could he of ever hoped to know?

Ian wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. He was empty of tears and feeling and movement and everything else. The fun, loving boy he once was, was gone. All he was, was a dried up, shriveled up shell with an incredible man clinging to his back, softly kissing his shoulders and running a gentle hand through his hair.

Mickey didn’t deserve this.

He had used up all the energy he had in that small conversation and willed himself to sleep. Tomorrow would be more of the same. His brothers and sisters would visit. Mandy would try to pull him out of bed. Mickey would curl up with him. And he’d lay there, tired and empty, unable to do much more than move his eyes and open and close his eyelids.

None of them deserved this.

The gun drawer rattled at the end of the room, untouched. A beacon in the dark, even with his eyes closed, and Ian finally slept.

~~~

**Author's Note:**

> (If you've gotten this far and think this needs another or different tag, please let me know.)


End file.
